Opinion
Column

Overhaul foreign worker program

Some small businesses appear to be faltering when it comes to adhering to the federal government’s regulations for its Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

A recent controversy in Saskatchewan over the firing of two veteran Canadian employees, along with similar complaints by some McDonald’s employees in B.C., may indicate a disturbing trend.

The federal government demands businesses prove foreign workers are better suited to jobs than Canadians. They must also guarantee the safety and wellbeing of their employees while in Canada and their return fare home.

These rules may be difficult to follow, but they are also necessary; violations result in the kind of bad blood we have seen recently with reports Canadians are losing their jobs to foreign workers.

And there may be violations galore. While statistics are elusive when agreements are forged privately, anecdotal evidence suggests many businesses hire foreign workers, or workers with suspect immigration credentials, to cut costs.

At one point, businesses were allowed to pay foreign workers 15% less than Canadians under the temporary worker program.

And covert deals in which foreign workers are hired for very low wages undermine minimum wage laws.

Businesses cite the disinterest of Canadian youth in menial jobs in order to justify hiring foreign workers, many of whom are driven by desperation to seize whatever job will give them an income.

But apathy doesn’t appear to apply to two Canadian employees recently fired from a pizza restaurant in Weyburn, Saskatchewan.

Shauna Jennison-Yung and her colleague Sandy Nelson were recently told not to return to the restaurant after what was called a “restructuring”.

Two foreign workers were kept in their place.

One would imagine a combined track record of working at the restaurant for 42 years would attest to the fact Nelson and Jennison-Yung were not only reliable, but adept at their jobs.

(The owners of the restaurant said that, to the best of their knowledge, they are in compliance with the government’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program and any changes they make to their business will also be in compliance.)

Similar complaints have emerged from employees of McDonald’s in B.C. and the company has now put its foreign worker program on hold, pending an audit to see if its Canadian and foreign workers are being treated fairly.

Canada certainly has labour shortages in some industries, and the federal government needs to provide viable solutions.

The problem does not appear to be in the formulation of the Temporary Foreign WorkerProgram; its rules are fair and comprehensive enough. But does it provide an enforcement framework for ensuring both Canadian and foreign workers are not disadvantaged?

For example, violations have occurred in other aspects of the program, such as foreign workers not being given the required assistance in settling here.

The federal government is only now planning to impose fines against businesses which abuse the system, but they will not be instituted until 2015.

This should have been an integral part of the program at the start in 1973. The government must also revisit the issue of whether foreign workers should be paid less than their Canadian counterparts.

Finally, better government oversight is needed to determine whether foreign workers are necessary to fill particular job vacancies in Canada.

Or are these decisions in fact being made solely on the basis of cost-cutting?

Late Thursday, Employment Minister Jason Kenney announced a moratorium on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in the food service industry. Here’s hoping the government fixes its problems.